Twitter – A Beautiful Game

So for a couple of years now, I’ve been a bit of a laughing stock in the geek community because I’m a luddite.

You see, I did not posses a smartphone. Neither did I have a twitter account.

This might not seem like a crippling social affliction, and most of the time it’s not. Most of the time I’m at home in Wisconsin, writing and hanging out with my little boy.

But then I go to a convention, like Origins, and while I’m there, I hang out with John Scalzi, Felicia Day, and Wil Wheaton. And while we’re playing games, someone snaps a picture. And then, when they’re posting it up online, someone looks at me and says “I’ll tag you here, What’s your twitter handle?”

And I say, “I’m not on twitter.”

Keep in mind who I’m hanging with here. Wil, John, and Felicia. If you added some sort of animal sidekick to this mix, I’m guessing they could join together and form a giant robot that would somehow defend the internet. The looks they give me are the worst sort of mingled pity and scorn….

Ah hell. I just realized *I’m* probably the animal sidekick in that group. I’m Lubar, the great shambling bear-man from the frozen tundra who is charmingly baffled by the subtle magic of the interweb.

Anyway, the point is that I’ve finally, *finally* taken the leap.

But that’s only the beginning. The phone itself isn’t enough. To really wire myself in, I know I need to get on twitter.

* * *

Part of the reason I want to get on twitter is because it will save me time. I tend to be… um…. wordy. Verbose even. Sometimes a blog that starts out as a simple announcement turns into a 500 word screed.

Twitter will help me reign that impulse in a bit. I’ll be able to mention things to y’all without feeling the obligation to make a meaty blog about them.

The other reason I need to get on twitter is to stay in better touch with my readers.

You see, I’m not a total technological schmendrick. I’ve been on facebook since before it was cool, and I’ve slowly built my army over there. For years I’ve used facebook to clue-in readers when I’m doing events, running contests, or going to conventions….

But these days Facebook deliberately throttles back the reach of most pages. These days I’m encouraged to “boost” my posts by giving facebook money. If I don’t boost the posts (and I never do) the things I write there only show up on *half* my reader’s news feeds.

It happens all the time. I schedule a signing in Boston. I post on facebook letting people know about my signing in Boston. I go to Boston. I get home and later that day I see someone howling on my wall “You Were In BOSTON!!??!?”

Twitter doesn’t have this problem. If you follow me on twitter, and I post something on twitter, you’ll be able to decide for yourself if it’s worth reading.

But here’s the problem. I don’t want to spend ages slowly building up my twitter following.

Also, you only get to lose your twitter virginity once.

My thought is, why not have a little fun with this?

My thought is, why don’t we play a little game?

* * *

So here’s what I’ve done.

I’ve created six twitter accounts, all versions of the name “Pat Rothfuss.”

I’ve recruited 5 members of the geek glitterati. Friends who are good with words. They’re witty, wired-in, and social media savvy.

Starting today, each of them will claim one of those accounts at random and do their best to convince the world they’re the *real* Pat Rothfuss.

They’ll connive and scheme. They’ll share links, twitter at you, and generally attempt to exude an aura of Rothfuss-y-ness.

I will take the sixth profile and attempt to do the same.

The contest will run for two weeks and finish on Halloween at midnight. Then everyone will vote on who they think the real Pat Rothfuss is.

The winner gets that most valuable commodity of all: Bragging Rights.

Even better, the winner will have 1,000 dollars donated to the charity of their choice. The prize money being provided by DAW Books, my lovely publisher.

I might also see if I can find a trophy of some sort.

The Rules:

It should be blindingly obvious to everyone that I could win this game pretty easily. I could post up a selfie with today’s newspaper and that would be the end of it.

But what would be the fun in that?

The five other people who are playing are going to have to win through sheer cleverness, trickery, and guile. I plan on winning the same way.

What I’m getting at here, is that I’m looking to play a beautiful game. Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?

Aside from my self-imposed handicap, there are only two rules:

1. Players can change anything on their twitter profiles except for their pictures. Those will remain the same throughout the contest. Otherwise things would just be too confusing.

2. Stories about Oot are out of bounds.

You see, I love telling stories about my little boy: (Codename Oot.)

A lot of the stories I tell are funny, silly, or irreverent. For example, on facebook I recently shared how Oot spent 20 minutes running around shouting “Gangnam Style!” and dancing naked.

I shared the story because it’s funny, and because he has no sense of shame at this point in his life.

But the thought of someone *else* making up a story along those lines…. It creeps me out a little bit.

Fair warning: We kinda threw this page together. If it gets hammered with 100,000 visitors in the next two days, it might crash.

So if you want to follow the contest, you might consider following all six of these accounts right now. That way you can watch the entire beautiful game without fear of tech glitches getting in the way.

As of right now, each profile is virtually identical except for its name and the profile picture. While the pictures will remain the same, (as per rule #1 above) the profiles will doubtless change as soon as the players take charge.

A careful observer will notice that each of the profiles has one tweet from Oct 14th saying, “I am the real Pat Rothfuss.”

A *very* careful observer will notice that that post is actually from Oct 14th 2012. That’s how long I’ve been planning to do this contest, but I’ve never managed to get around to it until now.

Because the profiles have been sitting around for a while, some of them have collected different numbers of followers.

I’m guessing that in the next couple days they’re going to get a few more….

P.S. Just now, minutes before we launch this blog, it has occurred to me that we should have some sort of official hashtag associated with it.

I consulted with my staff, and my twitter-smart assistant Amanda has confirmed that yes, this is a good idea.

What’s more, she has implied to me that this tag could even be used to ask a question of all the different accounts at the same time. Something along the lines of “If you’re the *real* Pat Rothfuss, what’s your favorite flavor skittle?”

And then you’d somehow… um… hash things. Together. I guess that’s another thing I’m going to have to figure out…

Anyway, how about we use #TheRealRothfuss. Using it all the time would would probably be cumbersome and cluttery. But now it’s there for people if they want it. (Sorry to make y’all use caps, but otherwise it looks too much like “There Al Rothfuss.” Which would be some other, entirely lamer game.)

Damn. I don’t have or want a smartphone and I have never been thrilled with the idea of Twitter. Maybe I will start a twitter account, and later cancel this when the fun is over. BUT I WILL NOT FOLLOW ANYONE NAMED KARDASHIAN!!!!

I noticed something that might be a giveaway. Maybe you already know and left it on purpose for anyone looking closely, or to throw people off the trail. If that’s not the case I’m not sure how to tell you what it is without posting it publicly.

I would love to play a beautiful game, but I am trammeled by the fear of Twitter. I’ve been there and done that, but have never really gotten the hang of it. The thought of having to follow and keep up with six tricksy Patricks fills me with a cold dread, despite that fact that it would be so much fun! BUT I guess if Pat is throwing down the gauntlet by getting on board with the Bird, so can I.

I’m not on Twitter and don’t officially follow anyone. But unofficially I occasionally go to the Twitter page of one person (Lev Grossman) and catch up, and it also looks like the consolidated tweet web page they’ve set up for the six Rothfi will be a nice way to watch the game without having to set up any infrastructure.

I remember searching for Pat some months ago, and being super confused by the set of possible handles and their lone tweets claiming to be him. I thought it was just some rando trying to get a monopoly on Rothfussing.

NO! Don’t give in Pat! You don’t need any of that stuff. I almost never use my phone, and I only made twitter to enter a contest to get a free book. Have no idea how the confounded thing works. Plus, we love your ramblings. They’re great. Don’t leave us!

Plus it really IS freaking annoying how Facebook throttles posts so that you have to PAY to promote it. Part of the secret is not posting a link into the status update, rather inserting it into the comments. But even that doesn’t always work. Twitter is limited only by how many tweeps a person follows. It will be a better method for Pat to reach his audience in quick bursts. I’m glad he’s taking the leap. :)

Were the accounts truly randomly chosen? Did he just give out 6 accounts and let people pick which one they wanted? Or did he reserve one for himself and let everyone else go for the remaining 5? (I have a theory. It could be demons… no, wait, wrong universe.)

And I feel the same way about Facebook, every time they upgrade they manage to make it suck even more than before. And seriously, WTF is with the sorting!! My goodreads is basically my primary social media outlet at this point, but I’m starting to migrate away from their as well since Amazon bought it out, just don’t care for the changes on that front. *sigh* I don’t really care about twitter, but I agree it is 100x better than paying facebook actual real money, what a joke…..

I am immensely instead to know who the people controlling the other accounts are! Not who is controlling which one, just whom the individuals are so I can try and figure out who is controlling which account!
Love this idea!

So…
1.)We’re looking for the one who will make newbie twitter mistakes, but is very clever so probably not past the first day or so.

2.) Was born and raised in Wisconson and will phrase things like a Wisconsonite

3.) Is a very busy, very wordy well-spoken author with a thing about strictures and guidelines who JUST got a new smartphone when he’s never had one before and probably doesn’t know how to work it yet (is that a Galaxy s4? Jealous. I’m typing this on a Razr from way back in 2011) and thus will probably not be very competent or fast with Twitter just yet (it takes time to build up those thumbs, take it from a former teenage girl)

4.) Busy. Will probably not consistantly lurk around for hours responding to teasing identity questions. Short, half hour to hour long bursts of witty remarks or wry observations, probably at odd times of the day. You do have a charity to run/kid to play with/girlfriend to love/life to live

5.) You have always been rather mum on that lovely exploding politics-religion duo. Can’t imagine you’ll change now.

6.) I can totally see you spouting off random, interesting facts.

7. And now I’m just starting to guess. This is actually really fun. So, knowing all of the above, if I had to guess right now, without any time passing and just glancing at the page I’d guess that you’re FakePatRothfuss. But it’s just a guess. I’ll have to observe more.

8. Hey Pat, you realize that the easiest thing for someone to do would just be to hedge their bets, create five new twitter handles and use them to vote six times, right? But I’m a bit diabolical, so maybe no one’ll do that?

Just to shoot some holes in your theories: as much as he tries to downplay it, Pat is ridiculously intelligent. I wouldn’t be surprised if he can manipulate that phone to make coffee for him. He also has a great ear for dialect, and can de-Wisconsinite himself at will.

Also, keep in mind that Pat has the advantage of not trying. He is himself, and as such, can make no wrong moves in this contest. The fakes will be working their butts off, plotting, scheming, misdirecting…

And lastly, Christie is correct: the winner will be the fake who gets the most votes, and the charity he or she has chosen will win the money. Once the contest is over, the votes are tallied and the charity announced, all masks will come off. Right now, only the fake Rothfi know who is playing, but not who belongs to each Twitter handle.

Nooooooooooooo! For some time now whenever people ask me about my Twitter I say “When Pat has one, I will have one.” It has always been the best answer, and people don’t have anything to say after that.
Now, not only you have a Twitter, but you are making a game out of it.
When I woke up today the first thing my husband did was to laugh at me and say “Your life is about to change.”
And no, I don’t have a smartphone either. Oh, Pat!

Love the idea of the comp and wish i could get off my arse and actually use twitter, instead i end up following a bunch of people and never log on to see what they have said.. maybe for the might Rothfuss it will be different!

I have an idea of my own, if i may??
Discworld Monthly do a roundup of Terry&Robs twitter posts over the course of the month. Its literally just a copy and paste but it helps us keep up with what hes been doing and saying.
Would there be any chance of doing something similar (say once a month) on the Blog? All Pat news is good news and would hate to miss out!

PS : I (and by I, I mean all readers of your blog) love it when a quick thing turns into a gargantuan 2000 word essay on the futility of trying to tell Pat that a hamster isn’t a fish! Though I do realise that you got better things to be doing such as playing with Oot, WB, conventions, signings, and writing.

Kind of a random unasked for observation, but I have never really understood why smartphones and social media things are associated with technology. It’s not edgy or new, it’s just what the world uses right now. It seems techy because we’re getting old enough to remember when Things Were Not So.

But for example, if someone doesn’t get a smartphone because they spend all their money on sci-fi books and computer parts, don’t really care what everyone in their circle of *acquaintances* ate for breakfast that morning, and perhaps only needs a phone that can Do That Phone Shit, it may have nothing to do with being a Luddite or ungeeky (which is funny enough by itself that geek is a circle one can be excluded from, teehee – not just this but in other things) and everything to do with thinking perhaps you do not need the kitchen gadget that slices, dices, and does sous-vide cooking even though all your neighbors say it’s totally turn of the century.

(Wee, paragraph long sentences.)

I totally get all the people that use them for their Lives and scheduling and GPSing and all of these things, and that highly social activities and careers can end up relying on them and other means of distributing information… but a lot of people also get caught up in having the hottest means of distribution before they have content to put out. Um, so yeah, I was really only thinking about the association with “not having phone” and “luddite” and not necessarily all the rest of the cool things that were posted. “Banned from 999 comment sites on the web!”

I mean, I have been building my own computers forever. I jumped on Netflix back in 2000. I was using BBS’s before there was a WWW, and jumped on the WWW in 95 as soon as I learned of it. My last “work for someone else” job was in tech, fixing systems.

I’m not really a luddite.

I’m really just anti-fad, anti-follow-the-crowd, and very anti-social media. The more someone tells me that “you have to get this” or “everyone is doing this” the more likely I am to NOT do it. :)

So far, I’m pretty firmly with @RealPatRothfuss. None of the top three sound like the Rothfuss voice. (Could be the silent one, of course.) I think it’s hilarious that the bottom center one went with “meh” AND “heh” AND “all manner of” already. Either reading the comments here or noticing the same trends. . .

Not sure about that. @PatRothfuss reads to me like Rothfuss parody – someone having a really good time mimicking some commonly seen blog phrases and habits. The emphases, even a misspelling. I think that the person who wrote it is getting a kick out of the process even if they don’t win. And in Pat’s case, I think he would just be himself and not make an effort to be EXTRA-himself.

And on a read of more recent stuff, I’m giving a DEFINITE no to the first two (the second one isn’t even trying – just scoring points), but @Pat_Rothfuss is sounding more like him than it did earlier. . .gotta be the third or fourth.

1. Was thankful assistance shut off email notifications
2. Worked to reconcile the *verified* issue
3.Has remarked it’s interesting to see how people view him by their impressions (convincing conversation with Amber)
4.Quick to post kick starters and calendar updates

I would guess ‏@PatRothfuss is #TheRealRothfuss. Multiple points in favor of this theory. The name is the most obvious. I think Pat plans to continue using this id beyond the game. There are several additional reasons for my theory, though I won’t mention those just yet (Why spoil the fun?). But seems like Pat’s playing mostly straight (meaning: no mind games, and no tricks, just being himself including the language quirks mentioned by others)

I can’t decide whether to vote for one of the pretenders purely based on how convincing they are, but I’m not rally sure how that relates to which charity gets the prize…

I think it’s @NotPatRothfuss. @PatrickRothfuss would be my second guess, but it’s early in the game at this point. I’m basing my hunches on words like heya, y’all, and some others that Pat has used on this blog. But this is a pretty base level analysis. Of course the other players will try to imitate Pat with varying degrees of success, and Pat will try to camouflage his style. And it’s early days yet.

The real challenge here comes from the brevity of twitter posts. I have very little doubt I could pick a genuine Rothfuss paragraph out of multiple pretenders. 140 character posts? Now that’s challenging!

FWIW, I’m not on Twitter either. Nor do I have a cell phone of any stripe.

I don’t know -why would Pat try to camouflage his style? He’s trying to get people to vote for him so he can get $$ for WorldBuilders. Plus, I bet he wouldn’t want people thinking someone else could counterfeit his unique voice.

I’ll be incredibly surprised if any of the accounts other than @PatRothfuss turns out to be #TheRealRothfuss. Surprised and humbled, as I’m almost certain he’s the bottom, middle one.

Specifically, it’s because of the “cash or credit” question he answered. Pat’s spoken at length about how folks should pay with cash, as opposed to debit cards and such. It’s possible one of the pretenders would know that about Pat, but none of the others answered the question (excepting the barter answer), and it’s not an issue I’ve seen Pat write a lot about, meaning it’s possible his pretenders don’t know his stance. In fact, I’ve only heard him talk about it, in person, at conventions. So, shrug. Bottom, middle. That’s what I think.

As much as I approve a contest in which a charity ends up with more moneys, it does kind of saddens me that someone who writes for a living and whose use of the English language puts a smile on my face would limit himself to a medium where 140 characters is the max for any given message.

oh my lord! I looked you up on twitter last year and followed all six *facepalm* I un-followed them thinking they we ALL fake accounts because that had nothing like the inputs you put into your blog!
i have been played for a fool Rothfuss!
i am getting my arse back on there right now and finding #TheRealRothfuss you conniving meanie you!